Review Score:

I’m not going to pretend that there’s someone out there who DOESN’T know what Infinity Ward’s latest game is. Because there aren’t any people not aware of this, at least not on this site. It has already broken every sales record out there and successfully cured cancer like five time – but I digress…

Modern Warfare 2 is a first person shooter set in the actions that followed those in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. As someone who doesn’t respond to overhype, threats or Activision very well, I was somewhat reluctant to playing this – given the chance that I might actually buy into all of the shit that’s on the Internet right now. Alas, I didn’t listen to myself and the game to be quite entertaining.

Let’s discuss some of the specifics of the game, shall we? This is a review, after all.

Modern Warfare 2 follows the story of multiple characters, ranging from an American infiltrator within a Russian terrorist cell to a highly ranked Scottish ex-SAS. I know that it may sound like a cluster fuck, but it’s all very nicely wrapped up. The story is somewhat up its on ass in messages from time to time, but the scope of it all is very interesting, even though it was probably Infinity Ward’s way of giving the entire world the finger. Don’t get me wrong, even though it’s all very pretentious (especially the middle of the game) the game presents itself in an extremely polished and structured way, switching between characters more frequently than Ron Jeremy changes his underwear.

Basically the story is about the US screwing the pooch in the first game, only to have it thrown back in their faces – like a circus clown getting a pie in their face. If the pie is a Nuke, and the face is their face AND balls. The setup of the story is doing a great job at making the pacing smooth, streamlining everything to near perfection with very few things interrupting the flow.

Now for the gameplay – it’s an FPS. You point the business end at whatever you want to make not breathe anymore and then you pull the trigger. Done deal.

Oh right, I suppose I have to elaborate somewhat… Right, what I really like about the gameplay is the fact that the variation from the last game has been ramped up, as with almost everything else. There are very limited vehicle sections breaking up the otherwise pretty exciting gunplay, small parts where you break out of character only to smear butter in your eyes and pleasure you in ways you didn’t think was possible.

Seeing as the developer, Infinity Ward, are very keen on keeping a solid framerate of 60 FPS up at all times, the gunplay is great. There is always something happening – explosions, flanking enemies and epic video game moments that will be remembered for years to come. Also, the smooth framerate really allows the controls to shine, the quick responsiveness going hand-in-hand with the overall quality of the game. It’s pickup and play at the get-go and I applaud it for that.

The online experience is not as fluid, though. The PC version is, as many of you might know, severely flawed and the peer-to-peer based server hosting is shit – so much for 60 FPS when you’re lagging like Michael J. Fox during an earthquake.

Now for the most important part of the review! The graphics!!!

They’re good.

Right, so there it is. Modern Warfare 2 is a great game, but I have a couple of problems with it…

First of all, the balance is off from time to time – the enemies are ridiculously good shots when playing on Hardened. Like silly good.

Secondly, I don’t know what to feel about the whole deal with breaking up the gameplay only to introduce a scripted event pushing the story forward. It’s good and all, but don’t you also think that it’s a bit frequent? It almost seems like they’re just improving upon the first one by just touching it up and making it happen more often. I don’t see anything groundbreaking about this, but it sure is pretty.

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